Cheers and jeers from around the news: • Cheers to the employees in the Sabattus town office. Here’s why: Because of all the public concern about swine flu, the town had installed glass panels between the employees and people coming into the office. The problem? Glass panels stop sound. Which means that transacting town business, […]

The Cowan Mill may have taken years to build, and stood for many decades, but it was undone in one afternoon. Its rapid disappearance from Lewiston’s landscape is proof that history is fleeting, and how endangered vacant properties really are, regardless of their community significance. More than any city in Maine, Lewiston is arriving at […]

(With credit and apologies to Jerry Maguire.) The scene: Gov. John Baldacci has just finished speaking in Augusta, at the first Maine Wind Energy Conference. He steps down from the dais; an aide hands him a cellphone. It’s the people of Maine calling. They exchange greetings and … Gov. John Baldacci: Yeah, what, what, what […]

Ken Burns is right. National parks are one of America’s best ideas, the everlasting symbol of a peculiar brand of cultural idealism that has allowed nature to triumph over politics. What were branded as “worthless lands” to justify their preservation are now the country’s jewels. Burns’ six-part documentary series on national parks, which appeared last […]

The editorial of Oct. 6 needs correction and clarification. The Maine Commission on Governmental Ethics and Election Practices did order Maine Leads to disclose expenses related to ballot initiatives, contrary to the editorial. The attorney for Maine Leads says this disclosure will include names of donors. The disclosure was ordered due to the facts of […]

Maine’s ethics commission has Jonathan Wayne, but it needs John Wayne. No offense intended to the executive director of the Maine Commission on Governmental Ethics and Election Practices, but he’s no frontier lawman. Nor is cleaning up lawless territories part of his job, yet this duty has become his. On Oct. 1, the ethics commission […]

The success (or failure) of national health care reform does not balance on the fate of a “public option” for health insurance. If the votes for its existence do not exist in Congress — by all accounts, they don’t — hanging onto its inclusion could sink other, important changes. Popular support for a public option […]

An under-card on this November’s star-studded referendum lineup, Question 3 — on whether to repeal Maine’s school district consolidation law — demands attention. Since its introduction in 2007, consolidation has arguably sparked more legislative disagreement than any other issue. Now, voters will decide the question: to keep the law, or do away with it. This […]

Cheers and jeers from around the news: • Jeers to Bethel and its bizarre saga regarding its police chief, Alan Carr. It has been impossible to get a straight answer about his job status. Is Carr still the chief, or isn’t he? Town administration and Carr himself are mum. The Bethel Citizen reported the chief’s […]

A federal tax on soda is a good idea. Sugary, syrupy beverages are linked to obesity and other maladies, so taxing them would help reduce their consumption and improve health. (If it were only that simple.) Soda taxes have emerged during this national conversation about health care, after the New England Journal of Medicine published […]